Sleeping Habits
by Becchan
Summary: Somewhere along the way, Atobe noted, Jiroh had grown accustomed to sleeping in his bed. AtoJi, Oneshot.


**Title:** Sleeping Habits**  
Fandom:** TeniPuri**  
Rating:** PG**  
Characters:** Atobe and Jiroh**  
Notes:** There are two places fic should never be written. One is history class; the other is my basement at 4 AM. This was written in both. ~_^ (AtoJi drabble; 1,334 words)  
  
  
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Somewhere along the way, Atobe noted, Jiroh had grown accustomed to sleeping in his bed.  
  
They were roommates, of course. Being subjected to living on-campus, Atobe would have much rather had his own house conveniently located on the school ground, but the school board (made up of closed-minded pigs as it were) had adamantly refused to let _that_ plan take root. Atobe had been quite miffed - the architectural plans had included the classiest pillared veranda to date, complete with blooming rose bushes on either side of the stairway - but after much negotiation, he had finally consented to living in one of the new, larger dorm rooms - as long as he was free to furnish and decorate as he (or at least his interior staff) saw fit.  
  
The whole arrangement nearly fell to pieces when the school board insisted he take a roommate. Atobe was not a person accustomed to sharing his living space, and he did not particularly warm to the notion of letting any random, computer-selected plebeian into his carefully constructed existence. Looking through the list of other students eligible for the new dormitories (which were, indubitably, much more expensive than the old), he had literally cringed at the names he was expected to choose from - a myriad of ignorant upstarts with rich fathers who refused to accept their less-than-prestigious social standings.  
  
It was only on his fourth or fifth review of the list that he finally discerned Jiroh's name from the drabble - Jiroh, whose family was less than high-class, but whose scholarship was possibly enough to buy the entire campus. (Atobe made it his business to know these things - how else would he know how superior to act with people? - and while he didn't usually approve of close association with the occasional commoner who trickled up from the masses, Jiroh was a talented tennis player - hence, scholarship - and to Atobe, this trait was enough to overrule any undesirable background traits he might be harboring.)  
  
So Atobe had his idea proposed to Jiroh, who accepted it in the usual spur of enthusiasm he had when it came to all things related to a person with exceptional tennis ability.  
  
At first, Atobe was quite pleased with his selection of a roommate. Jiroh had only good things to say about Atobe, of course, and when he wasn't spouting praises or doing the occasional homework assignment (Atobe never did figure out how Jiroh managed to spend so _little_ time studying and still pull above-average grades, completing all his assignments), he was sleeping.   
  
Jiroh would sleep anywhere, it seemed. For any number of random intervals Atobe could wander back to his room to retrieve a paper or drop off a book, there seemed to be an equal number of places his roommate could curl up and doze off. Hunched over a desk, crunched in a corner, sprawled across either bed, stretched out on the floor (where, Atobe learned, he blended easily with the ornate oriental carpet - after the first time he stepped on him, Atobe developed a habit of watching where he stepped if Jiroh was not in obvious sight) - and that wasn't even counting the odd places _outside_ the room that Atobe was apt to find the other boy. (The strangest place had to be under a holly bush behind the teachers' living quarters. Atobe had yet to figure out how Jiroh got there in the first place, let alone if he had any reason for doing so.)  
  
Still, eventually Atobe noticed the alarmingly frequent ratio in which he tended to find Jiroh curled up on _his_ bed, snoozing fitfully, Atobe's specialty designer pillow hugged comfortably to him. Atobe at first alluded these happening to the fact that his bed would naturally be more comfortable than other places - while he most definitely was not the only one in Hyotei with silk sheets and down comforters, he was convinced that his silk and down were the most comfortable available. And since Jiroh was never on his bed when he himself needed to be there, it was all right. (It seemed to Atobe that even if Jiroh was there when he came in for bed, by the time Atobe was ready to sleep he had somehow migrated across the room to his own bed. Yet another unexplained phenomenon, but Atobe was usually to tired at that point to contemplate it.)  
  
It was one day, after a particularly strenuous tennis practice, that Atobe shuffled in, hair still damp from his shower, to go to bed and find that Jiroh was still curled on top of his blankets, fast asleep. He tried prodding, shaking, even flicking water on the boy, to no avail - when Jiroh wanted to sleep, he would sleep, and Atobe was aghast to find that even he could not wake him. He was absolutely exhausted, though, so he tugged on the sheets until Jiroh rolled over, leaving enough room for Atobe to climb in and sleep.  
  
After that first incident, Jiroh stayed on Atobe's bed more often. Atobe started expecting to find him sleeping there when he came in for bed; eventually, he gave up on trying to wake him up and demand he move and just rolled him over and crawled in. He barely noticed that at some point, he stopped doing this, because Jiroh was _already_ scooted to the side, giving him plenty of space. In the same manner, he hardly noted when the other somehow ended up _under_ the covers - it all happened so progressively, over so many weeks, that by the time he realized all the large changes, Atobe had dismissed all the minuscule ones leading up to them as irrelevant or unimportant.  
  
Not that he minded Jiroh sharing his bed. In truth, he thought he almost slept better with the other boy next to him - though that might have been to effect of new Persian pillow set he received halfway through the semester. As long as his personal space and rest was not disturbed, Atobe had no qualms in sharing his luxuries with his teammate.  
  
But one December night, Atobe wandered in, toweling his hair, to find his bed empty. A quick glance around the room (subtly decorated for the onset of the Christmas season, of course - Atobe had hired a specialist to do it) quickly located Jiroh dozing in his own bed. Atobe shrugged it off (though he was privately a bit miffed that Jiroh had for some reason chosen that _plebeian_ mattress over his own) and went to bed as he usually did.  
  
However, midnight rolled around, and he was not asleep yet. One o'clock, then two o'clock... and by half past two, Atobe was beginning to get frustrated. He could feel that he was tired, but he could not, somehow, make himself comfortable enough to sleep. He was not one for tossing and turning (it provided no relief _and_ messed up one's hair), so he laid in bed another half hour, twitching slightly at his body's reluctance to sleep, before he threw the covers off in disgust and padded across the room.  
  
"Oi," he growled, more than a little irritably, shaking his roommate's still form.  
  
Jiroh shifted slightly, one eye peeking open. "Eh?"  
  
"Come to bed," Atobe said, crossing his arms.  
  
"Am in bed," Jiroh mumbled, looking up at his buchou warily.  
  
Atobe gave a great sigh, like a deity granting his people patience beyond all necessary sanctions. "_My_ bed."  
  
The other boy blinking sleepily, considering. "Oh."  
  
He slid out from under his covers, shuffling across the room and flopping into Atobe's bed unceremoniously; Atobe followed, more dignified, but when he climbed back into bed and a wave of exhaustion overtook him, he was uncharacteristically grateful. And when Jiroh rolled over and snuggled against him, he let him. He may have even put an arm around him.  
  
Somewhere along the way, Atobe noted, he had grown accustomed to Jiroh sleeping in his bed.  
  
  
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End file.
